Those are different things, if anything the church is cafeteria conservative, picking and choosing what they follow. It has some unique view points for sure, but abortion, gay marriage, etc… are conservative viewpoints, since the church doesn’t really dabble in economics social issues are all we have to go on, therefore the church is conservative.
What? No. The Church does not pay any attention to what some political party is thinking when she articulates moral law. The Church is required to consider moral conundrums from scratch.
I would say it is more like this: there was a time, in my lifetime, in fact, in which the Democratic and Republican parties in this country could be seen as defending different virtues. In our times, though, it seems more and more as if the political parties defend different vices. Voters don’t seem to want to be challenged to live virtuous lives. They want the government to protect their “freedom” to violate those parts of long-standing moral law that they would like to pretend don’t exist. So much for “ask not what your country can do for you”!
I have said this to many older Catholics, Catholics who were once proud of at least some of the things their political party was trying to accomplish, and they agree. It is very difficult to get anywhere in politics without being the defender of some improper license, as if that license were a God-given right. Many of the statesmen of the past that I’d like to see in office again could not get elected again. More and more, political promises in the defense of virtue are mere lip service. Those are the promises that are discarded first, the ones most honored with empty show that accomplishes little. This is not everyone in politics, but the higher you go, the worse this problem seems to get. This would indicate that money does not want to pay for protecting virtue, IMHO.
IOW, it is not that the Church is not liberal enough or conservative enough. It is that politics has been pushed more into the service of the selfish wants of the ego than the demands of virtue. This puts the Church into the role of an Old Testament prophet to both parties, the loud voice of truth that listeners would like to shut up, to throw into a muddy cistern. Yet they have to make a show of respect to the Pope, or they are exposed for what they are. This is why we have these politicians taking their patronizing tone with religious voices who try to correct their errors–and that tone is heard from all sides in this country, let’s face it.